Using condiments is the wrong way to experience food.

I'm talking about side sauces etc. The main offenders of this are: salt, pepper, ketchup and mustard.

Food should be experienced the way the chef/cook intended it. This includes a home setting too, particularly if you are cooking for others or someone is cooking for you.

If my grilled chicken was meant to have salt and pepper I would have seasoned it with that. Most properly cooked meats ARE already seasoned with salt and pepper so dumping a pile of salt and pepper or ketchup etc. on it is not the way it's supposed to taste and it's rude to the cook.

Same goes with sauces, if it's meant to have a whiskey glaze put it on when you're serving, that way it has the correct amount and flavour you intended. If you give someone a side sauce they might just ruin the experience for themselves by not using it at all or drowning it in the sauce, then they'll say the meal was not good and it's their own fault.

You might say "What if I don't like the sauce?". That's fine, that meal is not for you. Is eating the meat plain really what you want or just a sad compromise because you don't like the sauce?

The only exception to this is foods made intentionally bland specifically as vessels for condiments like fries and chicken nuggets.